Monday, January 27, 2014

John Smoltz

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Has anyone ever went from front line starter to ace reliever back to front line starter? The fact that he was in his late 30's when he went back to starting again is all the more incredible. I'd still rate him behind Glavine, Schilling, Mussina though because of the reliever years but he's a HOFer.

Has anyone ever went from front line starter to ace reliever back to front line starter?

Not unusual back in Lefty Grove's day for starters, even #1 starters to have 5-15 relief appearances a year in addition.

The guy I remember (who didn't make nearly as many relief appearances as I remember) was Ron Guidry, who picked up a couple of saves 1979/80 even while making 30 starts a year- his manager Bob Lemon made about 100 relief appearances in his career (he was primarily a reliever for 2 years- but nonetheless would make 5 or so relief appearances a year when he was starting

I consider John Smoltz as my intro to Sabremetrics. In 1996 I found rec.sport.baseball and was surprised that at the end of the year not everyone thought he should be the Cy Young winner, because how can you overlook 24 wins? IIRC, Kevin Brown had 14 wins and people were seriously for him. Several folks were kind and gave me a tutoring. I knew wins were a flaky stat but never realized just how flaky.

Brown had 17 W in '96, but either way as you say, in them days it was highly unlikely for a 24 game winner not to get the Cy Young award.
I could have gone either way that year despite Brown having an ERA over a run lower than Smoltz, their respective value was pretty close.
Smoltz was still pitching in the "launching pad" and Brown pitched in a one of the most pitching friendly parks in the league, although Brown did have a quite a bit better road ERA than Smoltz.

Has anyone ever went from front line starter to ace reliever back to front line starter?

He's at least one cut below Smoltz, but Ryan Dempster pitched >200IP as a starter for the Marlins at ages 23-25, spent a few years in injury purgatory before re-emerging as the Cubs closer at ages 28-30. At age 31, the Cubs moved him back to the starting rotation and he won 17 games for them with by far the best ERA of his career (it was even better than any of his three years as a closer). Interesting career shape.